Project design, subprojects

The AHEAD project (Acute HEArt Failure Database) is a registry of patients with acute heart failure hospitalized at specialized cardiology departments with 24 hour cath lab emergency. The Czech Republic is covered with a network of cath lab emergencies performing direct angioplasty in acute myocardial infarction, one cath lab serving approximately to a region of 400 000 inhabitants, the transfer time (telephone – door) usually not exceeding 60 minutes. The study focuses on two principal endpoints: hospital mortality and the length of hospital stay.

However, the parametric structure of the AHEAD project is rather flexible, allowing CRF extension with an arbitrary set of parameters. With regard to this fact, several subprojects might be created, which would be concerned with specific clinical and/or genetic hypotheses.

The following scheme describes the relations among individual subprojects of the AHEAD project.